Saga of abortion deception continues in PPACA

From forcing Americans to pay for a commodity, to driving up insurance premiums and deductibles, to covertly funding abortions and abortion-inducing drugs, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has been a source of contention for countless Americans across the country. Exacerbating the issue, many members of the Obama Administration have omitted critical details from PPACA information, refused requests for transparency from bipartisan inquirers, and blatantly lied when asked about abortion coverage and PPACA’s other conscience-violating mandates. (Does, “We have to pass the law to find out what’s in the law,” ring any bells?)

The endless saga of abortion deception that has ensued since PPACA’s passage in 2010 has left Americans confused, disgruntled, and distrustful of the Obama Administration. In response to the deception, groups of all political colorings have investigated and exposed PPACA’s insidious relationship with the abortion industry.

These groups have revealed that in some cases, the Obama Administration audaciously broke the law in pursuit of unrestricted abortion coverage. For example, the law mandates that abortion cannot be included as an essential benefit in health plans. However, a number of the “contraceptives” covered as essential in all PPACA health plans are abortion-inducing drugs and devices. All this is an effort, as Democrats for Life notes, to morph abortion under any form into routine female healthcare, completely oblivious to abortion’s negative impact on women’s health.

Among the groups working on behalf of the American people to obtain clarity where the Obama Administration has obfuscated the truth is a bipartisan watchdog group called the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The group issued a bombshell report last year revealing that over one thousand health plans offered in the twenty-eight states where abortion was allowed for excepted circumstances included non-excepted abortion coverage. Under the law, abortion coverage can only be provided as part of essential healthcare in cases where rape, incest, or the endangerment of the mother’s life are at issue; over one thousand plans were found to cover abortion for reasons beyond these limitations.

After the GAO report was released, Americans became aware that they had been left entirely clueless as to whether or not their own insurance plans covered elective abortions. To remedy this problem, the Charlotte Lozier Institute and the Family Research Council banded together to create a website exposing exactly which insurance plans in each state do and do not cover abortion (and which plans yielded inconclusive results). Americans in any state can now easily search the database to find out which plans in their state cover elective abortions.

Although helpful, exposing PPACA and helping Americans to circumvent paying for illegal abortion coverage do not solve the overarching problem: the Obama Administration to this day will not come clean about the Administration’s own policy, and that Americans have been unknowingly footing the bill for abortions they do not support.

Religious institutions should not need to sue the Obama Administration in order to keep their money from being siphoned into the injustice of abortion. Nor should individual Americans who – for a whole spectrum of personal reasons – oppose abortion have to sue the government in order to comply with the healthcare law on terms that comply with their consciences. Pro-Life provisions must underscore PPACA policy. Americans have been forced to play offense against the Federal government in order to defend their own consciences, and this must end.